Professional socialization of baccalaureate nursing students: can students in distance nursing programs become socialized?

Distance education programs may have difficulty socializing nursing students due to limited face-to-face student-faculty interaction. Socialized attitudes toward the nursing profession were assessed using two measures with three groups--senior BSN students enrolled at campus-based programs, senior BSN students enrolled in distance programs, and non-nursing students. The purpose of this analysis was to determine whether nursing students enrolled in distance programs had professional socialization outcomes comparable to nursing students enrolled in campus-based programs, and to examine the psychometric properties of two popular measures of professional socialization. Results indicated that students in the distance programs had higher scores than the campus-based nursing students, who, in turn, had higher scores than non-nursing students. A statistical interaction of RN status by program type indicated that health care experience was a critical factor in the socialization process. Of the two socialization measures examined, one had acceptable psychometric properties. These data suggest that health care and preceptorship experiences are important determinants of professional socialization and that students who opt for distance nursing programs graduate with socialization outcomes that are at least comparable to those of students who attend traditional programs.

Intensive Psychiatric Rehabilitation Treatment (IPRT): an overview of a new program.

Intensive Psychiatric Rehabilitation Treatment (IPRT) is a new program of out-patient psychiatric rehabilitation which is currently operating in New York State and Iowa. IPRT is based upon a process of psychiatric rehabilitation which was developed at the Boston University Center for Psychiatric Rehabilitation. The purpose of IPRT is to assist individuals with serious and persistent mental illness in identifying and achieving personally meaningful goals within the community. This article will provide an overview of IPRT by examining the program as it operates in New York State, the research foundations of the program, and the preliminary results of a state-wide evaluation of IPRT programs. IPRT is an important new program of outpatient psychiatric rehabilitation. Controlled studies are needed to establish the effectiveness of the program.

Pills and attitude change: misattribution of arousal or excuses for negative actions?

Two experiments evaluated the competing interpretations of cognitive dissonance and impression management theories regarding the pill and misattribution studies of attitude change in the forced compliance situation. Attitude change was eliminated when subjects were told about the tension side effects of taking a placebo, replicating the usual effect. Attitude change was also eliminated, however, when subjects took the pill following counterattitudinal behavior. In one condition of the second experiment, subjects were given instructions about tension side effects but were also told that the drug would not affect their moral judgment or behavior. These instructions eliminated attitude change in a standard pill condition. The typical finding of attitude change was manifested in the misattribution/no-excuse condition. The primary and secondary data from both studies provided more support for the impression management interpretation of the standard misattribution manipulations than for a theory of misattribution of dissonance-produced arousal.